So we spent the day at the FIB festival. Christine wisely navigated us to the front of the stage on the far side, a place no one else seemed to consider since we were able to spend the whole evening right up at the very front, separated only by the railing in front of the stage. The evening lineup was supposed to be a 1,2,3,4 punch of The Klaxons, Wilco, Dinosaur Jr. and Devo. Unfortunately the Kaxons were rescheduled and replaced by these guys:
Now how many people can say they’ve seen 3 grown men in full body skeleton scuba suits playing disco? Well apparently everyone in Europe besides us, because they all knew every word of every song in “Who Made Who’s” curiously entertaining set. Turns out these guys are from Denmark and are quite popular.
An interesting side note. A few days earlier I was archiving my old emails before we left the U.S. and ran across the very 1st email I ever wrote to Christine. She was in Denmark for work and we were planning a group trip to Coachella and I told her a story about meeting some Danes when I was in Australia and finding them very, very odd. It was my only Danish anecdote at the time. Now I have 2.
Wilco and Dinosaur Jr. played awesome sets and I spent the time between sets trying to convince the young Norwegian next to me that he had to have heard of Devo before if only via the cover of “Whip it” in that Swiffer commercial. He seemed amused by my explanation of the band’s importance to New Wave and even more so to Christine trying to figure out what grade she did a dance routine to “Whip It” in. (Answer: 4th…Youtube video to be posted later.)
Devo were actually great. The crowd was way more into them than Wilco or Dinosaur Jr. We just couldn’t get over their appearance. Ok, I know these guys are 60-ish, but so are these other guys. You tell me who looks in better shape:
Obviously the Devo diet was quite different than Mick and Keef’s over the years.
i heart my swiffer…